All posts by Alistair Lattimore

About Alistair Lattimore

My name is Alistair Lattimore, I'm in my very early 30's and live on the sunny Gold Coast in Australia. I married my high school sweet heart & we've been together for longer than I can remember. Claire and I started our family in September 2008 when Hugo was born and added a gorgeous little girl named Evie in May 2010. You can find me online in the typical hangouts, Google+, Twitter & facebook. .

Faulty Products & Customer Service

Hardware

Approximately six weeks ago, the CoolerMaster 550w Extreme power supply I bought at the start of the year as part of my computer upgrade to re-establish my geek prowess decided it was a good time to start making wurring noises.

Realising that it was going to be covered by warranty, I took it back to my place of purchase expecting to have it replaced on the spot as they aren’t an expensive item. Despite the fact that the computer shop moves an incredible amount of stock, they weren’t able to replace it on the spot and it had to be sent back to the manufacturer.

No problem, so I fill in the forms to have it sent away and I’m told that I should have it repaired or replaced within about two weeks. A little over a week passes and I haven’t heard anything and then out of the blue I receive an automated email telling me that they have actually processed my power supply to be sent back to the manufacturer. At this point I was pretty annoyed, they’ve burnt up over half their suggested time frame through in-action – but we’ll move past that.

Another fortnight passes from the date that they finally processed it and still nothing, at which point I’ve now been waiting the better part of a month to have a $100 power supply replaced. I give them a call and they tell me that it has now left the manufacturer and should be back to them within a matter of days and I’ll receive another email when it arrives, excellent!

Roughly another fortnight passes and still nothing, so I called again to find out what was going on to rattle someones cage. I inevitably hear the words that I knew was going to happen from the offset – that it was in fact back with them and not to my surprise, I didn’t receive an email when they processed it again.

All in all it too between five and six weeks to have a $100 power supply replaced which they would have had in stock. I’m sure this isn’t a unique story or process in having a product returned to the manufacturer, however when you’re talking about a $100 item and not a $500 or $3000 item – the turn around times become a little hard to accept, when in the end I was given a brand new item anyway.

Hugo Rankin Lattimore

Family, Photos

Hugo Rankin Lattimore, born 12:50PM 4 September 2008 at Pindara Private Hospital Gold Coast (3840gm/8lb 8oz and 52.5cm)Claire and I became parents for the first time on Thursday 4th September at approximately 12:50PM when we welcomed a little boy named Hugo Rankin Lattimore into the world.

Hugo weighed in at a neat 3840gm or 8lb 8oz in the old scale and was 52.5cm long. According to the height/weight charts for births, those figures places Hugo roughly within or just above the averages for births.

Claire and Hugo are doing really well and we’re extremely proud, excited and blessed to have such a wonderful addition to start our family.

More to follow!

Game Time

Family

Claire and I were due to be parents, at least according to the due date estimates, on the 31 August. As it turned out, that wasn’t to be and when we met with our doctor leading into the birth they scheduled an induction just in case. After no action for the last few days, the ‘just in case’ appointment is going to come in handy as Claire is going to be induced tonight at midnight. In really simple terms, in less than 24 hours – we should be proud new parents!

Everything Is Relative

Internet, News

I came across a snippet of information regarding ComCast, the United States largest cable TV and second largest internet provider – they are about to place limits on their clients internet usage.

As you can imagine, after having competitively priced, very fast all you can eat internet for a long time – the change has been received as though it was the end of the internet and after all, a heavily restrictive 250Gb per month is outrageous!

To contrast what ComCast clients are about to receive, most broadband users in Australia pay a little more for their internet, it is 1/10th the speed and the overwhelming majority of people survive on a plan that offers less than 50Gb per month.

After having lived through the notorious 3Gb Cap from Telstra in the late 1990’s, Australian broadband users were happy when competition entered the market and provided better value plans. While we’re happy we’re not being limited to 3Gb and can get up to 50Gb at a moderate price, ComCast clients are screaming foul play that they are being pulled down to a measly 250Gb per month.

Channel 7 Fail As An Olympic Broadcaster

Sport, TV

Channel Seven secured the broadcast rights for the 2008 Beijing Olympics in Australia and to mark the event, Channel 7 essentially blocked out all other shows over the two week period while the Olympics were on to broadcast it continuously.

I couldn’t believe that while broadcasting the Olympics close to 24 hours per day, that they managed to show so little of the sports on offer. If you look into that just a little bit, it becomes clearer quite quickly:

  • If you replay the same three rounds of the diving five times in one day, a lot of time is burnt that could have been spent diversifying what they were showing.
  • If you interview the same athlete four times, ask the same questions and and expect to get different responses – as the saying goes, it is the definition of insanity.
  • If you re-interview the same set of athletes on different shows, continue to ask the same questions in point 2 a different way and still expect to get a different response – you get the point.
  • Promote only the sports that have an Australian in it
  • Promote only the sports that have an Australian in it and result in some sort of achievement
  • All but flatly ignore the effort and dedication put in by every other athlete that did not get a medal or break some sort of record
  • Televise two rounds of a given sport (see point 4) then ignore it if/when point 4 ceases to be relevant
  • Continue to replay the same event over and over again, hang on – I mentioned that in point 1
  • Fill time in my promoting yet another bullshit excuse to interview more athletes, hoping to get the tear jerking emotional response which you didn’t receive the last 3 times you interviewed them; meanwhile not showing the vast array of other sports available.

The Olympics are about pitting the worlds greatest athletes against one another in a competition that comes round once every four years. It will clearly come as a shock to Channel 7 that it is not about continuously interviewing and re-interviewing the same athletes and showing the same heats of the same sports over and over again.

I suppose we should be happy that Michel Phelps and Usain Bolt aren’t Australian or we’d still be hearing about it.